The present invention relates to a device for transporting flat products from a first transport direction to in a second transport direction.
Devices of this type are used, for example, by relatively large companies with a large amount of mail items. These companies include, for example, large telecommunications enterprises with a large number of invoices to be sent, insurance enterprises, enterprises which use a lot of advertising and have a large amount of letter post to be sent, which is to be produced, placed in envelopes and sent automatically.
To this end, the letters, after they have been printed, are transferred automatically into envelopes in what is known as an enveloping machine, and the envelopes are subsequently sealed. In this form, the envelopes come out of the enveloping machine with different types of contents, that is to say both letters with many and few pages, brochures with a thick folded edge and the like.
After this, the letters as a rule already pass onto a conveyor belt, after which they are picked up manually by persons standing at this conveyor belt, according to certain criteria, and are transferred into transport boxes.
These transport boxes are then delivered correspondingly to the respective mail or delivery enterprise which then deals with the dispatch of the corresponding letters. In order that the outlay at the corresponding letter delivery enterprise is kept as low as possible, presorting into the corresponding transport baskets is already carried out by the abovementioned persons. As has already been mentioned, this takes place according to corresponding criteria. Here, these criteria can be related, in particular, to the address information, with the result that, for example, presorting according to zip code regions can already take place. This sorting can be designed to be differentiated in various ways, with the result that even very precise sorting can take place, depending on the amount of letters.
In order for it to be possible to perform the division into, for example, corresponding zip code regions, the persons which perform the sorting act in the simplest case in such a way that they read the corresponding zip codes on the letters which have been placed into envelopes. In order to facilitate this very laborious and wearisome work, corresponding markings are frequently inserted in the address field of the letters depending on the zip code regions. These markings can then either help the corresponding sorting person to detect different zip code regions more quickly, or can be configured in such a way that they are detected electronically by a scanner. The latter then ensures by way of a separate unit that, for example, the letters are transported in the continuous stream with a slight offset on the belt, at which a transition occurs from one zip code region to the next. This offset can then be detected readily by the sorting persons, with the result that, for example they only need to pick up the letters between one offset and the next, without having to concentrate further on the respective address fields. In addition to the separate markings, a scanner of this type can of course also read the zip codes directly by character recognition.
Transporting and sorting operations of this type can also be necessary for other flat products such as cartons, blanks, folding boxes, plates, dividing plates, for example made from plastic, paper, cardboard or metal, if they are delivered in relatively large numbers from a preliminary station, but are to be processed further in different packet sizes.
All flat products of this type have side edges which lie opposite one another, as viewed over their surface. Here, they do not necessarily have to run in a straight line, but rather can also be curved.
This manual sorting and transferring into corresponding transport containers is relatively expensive and prone to errors. An alternative, in which this transferring of the product coming from a station connected in front into a transport container is carried out automatically, is therefore very highly desirable.
To this end, however, it is necessary that the flat products which as a rule lie horizontally are sorted and are moved, in particular, into an upright, preferably perpendicular position. The products are later also present in an orientation of this type in the respective transport container.
The transfer of entire packets, that is to say of accumulations of products which are transported on a transport belt in a lying and preferably already presorted manner, into a transport container by separate devices having, for example, grippers affords only few advantages over the manual method, as has previously been used. Slipping and mixing up of the envelopes which have optionally already been sorted before can also occur here.
These problems are found not only in the handling described above in detail of envelopes, but generally in the case of all flat products which are to be sorted.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide, irrespectively of whether sorting of the products takes place in a horizontally oriented stream of products or in a stream of products oriented in an upright manner, a device in order to make it possible to transfer a corresponding horizontal stream of products, as it comes, for example, from an enveloping machine, into an upright, preferably perpendicular position, preferably allowing a separate further transport of the flat products for the purpose of accuracy and the reduction of fault sources.